Young designer Alesia Cîdă: “The fashion world is made of… a bit of drama, a lot of pollution, a lot of creativity”

New faces. New talents. Interesting & cool designers just ready to conquer the fashion world. This spring we are going to meet some of the most talented emerging fashion designers, part of Romanian Design Week 2024 Young Design section. Meet Alesia Cîdă. 

#FashionBlogger #FashionTrend #RomanianDesigner #Sustenability #English

• You can find Alesia on Instagram @alesiacida & https://www.notjustalabel.com/alesia-cida 
• Tickets for Romanian Design Week 2024 can be purchased from here. More details on website, Facebook and Instagram.

Womenswear fashion design graduate of London College of Fashion with a focus on resourcefulness. The starting point comes from their own special junk collection: interesting objects, trinkets, textiles and trash  they’ve collected along the years.  

You are present in the RDW Young Design section at Romanian Design Week 2024. Which qualities/ strengths made you make it to the list? What do you think? 

I am really grateful to be part of the Young Design section this year. My graduate collection is centred around heritage and sustainability. I believe that the education I received at London College of Fashion allowed me to bring a fresh view on these subjects and I’m really happy it was so well received here.

For you, as a designer, the fashion world is made of…

A bit of drama, a lot of pollution, a lot of creativity… Now’s the time to pivot and put all our energy towards better ways of creating instead of delivering new products.

Which are the biggest challenges for a young designer nowadays?

Making money while maintaining your ethics. Negotiating cost production and affordability. Trying to create with the lowest carbon footprint. This is a bit controversial, but I do believe we don’t need any more new clothes. We have more than enough. So that’s why, as a designer, I am trying to find ways that allow me to create responsibly. Nowadays I am focusing on alternative strategies through which I can be active as a designer, without the need to succumb to capitalism. That means focusing more on workshops and community activities, renting instead of selling and producing limited quantities of buyable items.

Let’s talk about social media and AI a little bit. 🙂 Friends, enemies? 

Social media is crucial in a young brand’s development. That’s where everything’s happening. Nowadays, a good social media presence is more important than the quality of the product itself.
About AI, I am not completely against it, but I feel like it is overused and overpraised. AI should be used for research and generating ideas, not for superficial and quick outcomes. Designers pour their heart and lived experiences into every piece they make and that shouldn’t be taken away. The right public will always tell when something is AI.

Name 3 moments that define you as a designer. 

The making of my graduate collection. It started with a call for my peers’ unwanted objects. And then with LCF’s technicians and my family’s help on finishings. Ended with the crucial help I always receive backstage from fellow designers and friends when I am doing fashion shows. This is what my brand is built on: community and sustainability.

The designer you would like to ask for a coffee and a piece of advice would be… 

I adore the Bulgarian duo Chopova Lowena. We share the same interest for our Eastern European heritage and ethical making. They once acknowledged almost giving up because of how hard the first year was for the brand. I would love to hear what drove them to not call it quits and continue pushing. Starting a business in the fashion industry is really unpredictable. You don’t know when a celebrity might ask you for one of your pieces and that’s gonna make your sales skyrocket.

You wish you have invented… 

Subtraction pattern cutting or Transformational Reconstruction. Both Shingo Sato and Julian Roberts are my heroes for inventing alternative ways of pattern cutting because I absolutely despise the traditional ways. I wish I could come up with a new technique in the fashion industry to make it a little less scary and more eco conscious.

What is next for you – this year (school, collections, exhibitions etc.)? 

Actually, I just applied for my dream Master’s degree course at CSM (finger’s crossed). Other than that, I have a lot of exciting things coming up, including the Young Design exhibition at RDW. I just finished a new collection, so photographers, stylists, models, let’s collaborate! It’s fresh outta oven! 

(Photography: Nur Khamis @nurstagramx. Models: Kiana Pascenco @kiana_pascenco, Miruna Alina @mirunaalinaa. Hair&MUA: Ioana Roman @ioanarmn.)

* Romanian Design Week is the multidisciplinary festival dedicated to creative industries, organized by The Institute, presented by UniCredit Bank and financed by the Ministry of Culture. This year it will take place between May 24 and June 2 in Bucharest, in the building of the former CINA restaurant (Benjamin Franklin, no. 10), near the Romanian Athenaeum. This year’s edition invites the public to explore the city and discover its potential, while investigating the ways in which creativity and innovation can shape the urban spaces of the future, under the theme “Unlock the city”.

* About RDW Young Design… 29 young designers and architects will be able to be seen in an exhibition dedicated to them, supported by Rompetrol and the Romanian Cultural Institute. Thus, the route of their personal development is contextualised, in a celebration of the beginnings of the road, as well as of the effervescence and courage of young talents.